Sustainable IT is the practice of designing, delivering, and managing technology to minimize environmental impact while maximizing operational resilience. It moves beyond "being green" to focus on resource efficiency—reducing power, cooling, and physical footprint. At its core, sustainable IT leverages software-defined architectures to target "zombie servers" and underutilized hardware, and to drive a transformation in the data center from a cost center into a lean, AI-ready foundation.
Sustainable IT Solutions
Maximize Infrastructure Performance, Minimize Resource Waste
Build an AI-ready, hybrid multicloud environment designed for peak efficiency. By consolidating legacy silos and modernizing architecture, organizations achieve operational transparency and help support significant reductions in physical footprints.
Sustainable IT is the practice of designing and managing technology to maximize operational resilience through resource efficiency. By leveraging software-defined architectures, organizations can minimize “zombie servers” and underutilized hardware, transforming the data center into a streamlined, performant, and AI-ready foundation.
Learn about the different factors that can influence the efficiency and environmental impact of IT systems using Nutanix solutions.
Quantifiable Efficiency Outcomes of Infrastructure Modernization
1. These space or energy savings claims are average results based on case studies of representative Nutanix customers that are publicly available on the Nutanix website as of December 10, 2025 and were initially published between Jan 1 2023 and Dec 17, 2025. Because potential customer outcomes depend on a variety of factors including their use case, individual requirements, and operating environments, these accounts should not be construed to be a promise or obligation to deliver specific outcomes. We invite you to contact Nutanix here to discuss how we may be able to provide an optimal solution for your specific circumstances.
2. https://www.nutanix.com/blog/how-companies-can-reduce-emissions-by-moving-workloads
The Strategic Value of Modernization
IDC Whitepaper: Hybrid Multicloud Deployment Choices Can Increase ROI Via Sustainability Benefits
Modernizing infrastructure is more than a technical upgrade; it is a driver for operational resilience and cost efficiency. A study by IDC reveals that leveraging platforms like Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) provides a measurable path toward resource-conscious IT.
Key Research Benchmarks*:
Power Efficiency: One organization reported a 60% reduction in power consumption, and another achieved reductions of over 70%.
Rack-Space Reduction: One organization achieved an 80% reduction in physical footprint through software-defined consolidation.
Tangible Carbon Abatement: One enterprise eliminated an estimated 199.5 metric tons of CO2 annually—equivalent to the carbon sequestration of 201 acres of U.S. forest.
Executive Outcomes:
AI-Ready Infrastructure: Efficient hybrid multicloud environments can help to free up power and cooling capacity for data-intensive AI and GenAI workloads.
Cost Avoidance: Improved scalability and capacity planning promotes a more measured approach to future procurement.
- Regulatory Readiness: Provides a foundation for supporting evolving global data sovereignty and sustainability reporting mandates.
Software-Defined Solutions for Resource-Conscious IT
The Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) can help optimize energy and space. By shifting from hardware-heavy legacy systems to an intelligent software tier, organizations can help minimize waste and reclaim the infrastructure capacity needed for modern innovation.
Nutanix Is Trusted by 29,000+ Customers
Organic Valley modernized their IT Infrastructure to improve sustainability.
Organic Valley shares how they cut their physical footprint by more than half, leading to reduced power usage, and substantial savings in cooling requirements.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Resource-conscious IT has become a business imperative due to three converging factors: global regulatory mandates (such as CSRD and California SB 253), the energy demands of AI, and rising operational costs. As GenAI workloads drive unprecedented power and cooling requirements, organizations must modernize their data centers to prevent infrastructure and AI Sprawl from outstripping their energy capacity.
Businesses can accelerate sustainability by adopting a software-defined strategy:
Consolidate Infrastructure: Transition from legacy three-tier hardware to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) to reduce physical rackspace.
Adopt Cloud-Native Patterns: Leverage containers via platforms like NKP to increase application density and resource utilization, in support of organizational goals to maximize power efficiency.
Enable Portability: Use hybrid multicloud clusters (NC2) to move workloads to public cloud environments, data centers with higher renewable energy mixes or lower carbon intensity without refactoring code, or to "hibernate" inactive and/or disaster recovery environments when not in use to avoid wasting power.
The benefits extend far beyond carbon reduction:
Operational ROI: As shown, storage (55% efficiencies), network (42%), and server/hyperconverged (27%) teams all require less time for day-to-day tasks with Nutanix Cloud Platform, driving a 47% average efficiency improvement across these teams. As a result, study participants’ IT infrastructure teams have significantly more capacity to manage infrastructure and focus on other value-add activities, as the average staff member being able to manage and support 90% more VMs on average with Nutanix Cloud Platform indicates.***
Direct Cost Savings: Consolidating footprints through virtualization can lead to a reduction in energy costs and space requirements.
Traditional IT solutions often rely on overprovisioning—buying hardware for "peak loads" that rarely occur, leading to resource waste. In contrast, sustainable IT solutions are dynamic and software-defined. They prioritize high utilization rates, utilize "sleep" modes for inactive workloads, and provide the visibility and transparency needed to track a digital footprint in real-time—capabilities that legacy three-tier systems lack.
Yes. While initial modernization requires investment, sustainable IT can be a cost-avoidance strategy. By consolidating footprint and reducing energy consumption while increasing the "human efficiency" of IT teams through automation, there is potential for increased ROI.
Sustainable IT can free capacity for innovation. By reclaiming power and cooling head-room through infrastructure consolidation, businesses can redeploy those resources to growth initiatives like AI and GenAI workloads without building new data centers. It transforms IT from a resource-constrained silo into a resilient, scalable platform.
Traditional networking often relies on a "sprawl" of dedicated, high-wattage hardware appliances that remain powered on regardless of traffic levels. By transitioning to Software-Defined Networking (SDN)—like Nutanix Flow Virtual Networking—organizations can virtualize these functions directly onto the existing hyperconverged nodes. This has the potential to reduce "vampire power" draw and cooling requirements for redundant networking equipment. By treating the network as a software service, there is opportunity to achieve a more "low-waste" architecture where data movement is optimized and physical hardware footprint is minimized.
